Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Here at the RetroFit headquarters we had an awesome weekend of selling stuff and good people stopping by.Later in the afternoon Ken stopped by.I'm liking the vw switch!The ol'man let Ken take Mary out for a spin too!

Day 2! The Allentown brothers Mike and Nick took a ride up.Mike found 2 cracks starting in his rear fender. So we ran over to my neighbor Greg who has a small mig welder and Ben fixed up Mike's fender real quick.Gregs barn find slabside.Later in the afternoon Ken came back with his crew.Chris' Crazy Frank!The backyard turned into a chopper pow wow.Afterwards everyone took a ride up to the grounds where Strange Days is going down. I had to stay behind and mind the store but Ben sent me this photo. WOW! Can't wait for July!

Day 3: I finally broke free for a while and took the sidecar up to Port Jervis, dodging the memorial weekenders. Had good food at the girl's apartment. Ben's niece got her first ride ever in a side car and she was smiling ear to ear the whole time! (I think Ben needs to find a hack for his panhead now!)Good weekend for sure! Now its time to get back to work. Rhinebeck is around the corner and I still have a mess of wiring on the bagger to finish yet.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

I have stuff to deal with the garage sale tomorrow or rather a barn sale. So here's an early one for you guys this week.

So heres the deal with this photo. That's Billy standing next to a sportster he owned. But what this photo is really about is the trike sitting in the background.A little closer...

There we go. I tried to do a little color correction. If you remember a while back on the post I made: Strange Connections I was told the Yamahopper use to be a trike. Well I now have the proof!If you notice the front wheel has subtle red stripe along the edge of the rim.This photo is from the day I brought the bike home. And theres the front wheel with the red stripe!I always heard about this bike being a trike but I never saw an actual photo of it.

I spent the whole day yesterday tearing down the wiring on the bagger and what a mess! This has to be one of the worst wiring jobs I have ever scene. (And I thought when I got the Voodoo Child with bandaids holding connections together was funny) Simply put, it was senseless for half of what was done to it. No reason for it.On top of that almost half of the wiring was melted! And it wasnt from when it shorted out and stranded me when I took it for test ride back in March. This wiring was bubbled, melted, corroded, and stuck together from a long time ago! I honestly don't know how this thing even ran. This bike was one spark away from a total melt down.

Benny stopped by to lend a hand. We're tossing the aluminum shroud aside and putting a set of panhead tins up front. A little modification on the shovelhead trees were needed.I've got two weeks till Rhinebeck so I need to hustle on this wiring. I'm hooking EVERYTHING back up. All the idiot lights and signals. And not to mention the Christmas tree hanging off the back!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Or a mini swap meet if you will. Multiple sellers. Motorcycle parts, toys, and tools.So if any of you local yokels wanna swing by, contact me for directions captcal@gmail.comCross your fingers this rain will stop!!!!!!

Monday, May 23, 2011

So rewind 3 weeks. The ol'man came to brooklyn and we spent the afternoon putzin around in the shop. I was showing him the latest on this build and we were playing around with gas tank ideas.

The peanut tank that Ive been using for mock up is really too small. Ive had this Paughco tank laying around it doesn't look right either. The tunnel is too low, but overall the proportions aren't right for this bike. The Paughco mustang tanks are supposed to look like split fat bob tanks welded together. They're close but there's something I never liked about them.

I envisioned this bike with something close to a set of flatside tanks. But real flatside tanks would be too big and look cheesy. This bike has a very close stance to that of the pan Fonda rode in the Wild Angels. I was becoming frustrated with not finding the right kind of gas tank for this bike. You would have to put a gun to my head to put a sportster tank on this bike. Even if I lowered the Paugho tank it would still look.... typical. With such a unique bike, it needs a unique solution for a gas tank. I wanted to steer clear of the jap chop formula that so many use today.No sir... I don't like it....

I love the little side fill wassell tank but it's really too small to feed those 4 hungry carbs. It's all about riding isnt it?! And something still doesnt sit well with me about that Paughco tank. And then it hit me out of dumb luck!I was messing with the tank and had it upside down. I walked away for a minute to get a wrench or something and then I hear the ol'man holler, "Check this out!" I come back and instantly saw what he did. The tank has a better shape upside down! And then I figured out after all this time why I'm not crazy about those Paughco Mustang tanks...Its that flat spot that's in the center of the tank!There's my mini split tanks that I originally envisioned! Believe it or not, these tanks have a better profile upside down.It may not seem like much looking at these photos but in person it's day and night.So we broke out the battle axe...So has Paughco been making their tanks upside down all these years? Who knows. But what I do know is I definitely found my tanks for this bike.

I debated whether to sew the two halves back together or make them split. I think for something different I'm going to make them split. The biggest challenge is going to find two small gas caps and bungs like the one pictured. We'll see what Rhinebeck brings this year, hopefully not rain, I think we had enough already....